Automotive belt tensioners are well known in the art and have been used to regulate tension in various belt systems, e.g., timing belts. In general, a belt tensioner includes a movable support structure that rotatably supports a portion of a belt in an engine or other mechanical system. The rotational position of the arm/pulley sub-assembly of a belt tensioner normally self-adjusts to compensate for increases or decreases in belt path length due to the thermal expansion or contraction of the engine and/or belt wear and stretch, thereby regulating tension in the belt. Additionally, the entire tensioner assembly is normally manually adjustable relative to the engine block so that the tensioner can be adjusted to the proper position on the engine regardless of the engine build tolerances.
One common type of conventional belt tensioner includes a fixed structure and a pivoted structure, which generally consists of an arm/pulley sub-assembly that is pivotally mounted on the fixed structure. A coil spring surrounds the pivoted member, and the ends of the spring are respectively connected to the fixed structure and the pivoted structure so as to bias the pivoted structure toward a position of maximum belt take-up. The spring biasing force decreases as the pivoted structure moves from a position of minimum belt take-up to a position of maximum belt take-up. Although the spring force varies within the range of movement provided, substantially constant tension is maintained on the belt. U.S. Pat. No. 4,473,362 discloses such a tensioner.
Additionally, timing belt and chain tensioners normally have stroke limiters. A stroke limiter customarily includes a pair of fixed stops which prevent rotation of the pivot arm beyond predetermined distances from the normal pivot arm position; a first stop limits arm rotation towards the belt and is commonly referred to as a “free arm stop,” and a second stop limits arm rotation away from the belt and is commonly referred to as a “backstop.” The backstop is normally positioned such that even if the pivot arm is rotated against it, there will not be enough slack in the belt for the belt to rise above the teeth in any of the sprockets in the drive and “jump over” or disengage from the teeth. In other words, the backstop is designed to prevent tooth skip, which tooth skip would otherwise cause timing errors between the various sprockets and, consequently, equipment errors and damage.
The common practice of placing the backstop at a certain distance from the nominal pivot arm position is not feasible for tensioners which provide no initial manual installation adjustment and with which the rotation of the pivoted structure is intended to compensate for engine build tolerances. In other words, with such tensioner configurations, the tensioner arm does not have any fixed nominal position and, therefore, there is no fixed backstop position, either, thus making it necessary to adjust the backstop position during the initial tensioner installation either manually or, preferably, automatically. In addition, the increased life expectancy of modern engine components results in longer belt life and belt stretch, and hence generally greater adjustment ranges are required for the pivoted structure of the tensioner during the life of the tensioner. Therefore, if manual service adjustments are to be avoided, it becomes even more important for the backstop position to be self-adjusting.
Several known tensioner designs provide such self-adjustment of the tensioner backstop. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,145,934 discloses a wedge which is pushed against the arm eccentric (lever) so that the arm cannot rotate away from the belt once the tensioner arm has been biased towards the belt by the tensioning spring. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,351,636 discloses a tensioner that is similar in principle, but with a ratchet-and-pawl assembly instead of a wedge. Another ratchet-and-pawl type tensioner mechanism is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,634,407. In each of these patents, however, the tensioner arm is unable to rotate away from the belt once it has rotated towards the belt; thus, such configurations do not allow for belt tension control during thermal expansion of the engine block.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,583,962 discloses an improvement over such designs. In particular, it discloses a mechanism which allows a limited amount of return stroke of the arm towards the backstop to accommodate thermal expansion of the engine. The tensioner of this patent utilizes a spring clutch-type one-way device and an arc-shaped slot configured to permit the arm to rotate backwards. Similarly, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,822,322 and 4,834,694 disclose tensioners in which the one-way mechanisms are constituted by conventional, one-way (roller) clutches, and tensioner arm return stroke is controlled by arc-shaped slots. Furthermore, U.S. Pat. No. 4,808,148 discloses a tensioner in which, rather than a slot-limited reverse stroke, a resilient biasing element (e.g., an elastomeric spring) is provided between the ratchet-and-pawl assembly and the stationary mounting member.
The above-mentioned tensioner designs all suffer from the limitation that the backstop can not move back, away from the belt, once it has moved towards the free arm position or when operating under other than optimum, hot engine running conditions. Because the backstop may move beyond the optimum position during cold starts and/or as a result of severe engine kick-backs, the tensioner arm will frequently contact the backstop, thereby causing noise, damage, and/or premature failure of the components. Furthermore, tensioners of this type do not permit the belt to be re-installed or replaced.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,923,435 discloses a tensioner with viscous material disposed between the arm and a one-way clutch mechanism. This particular design does not, however, guarantee that the tensioned belt will not jump a tooth. Because the viscous material allows the tensioner arm to rotate if the belt load is applied continuously (which can occur particularly when the engine is forced to rotate backwards due to the car rolling backward without the engine running), the viscous material does not function as a positive stop, but rather only as a rotational damper.